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Saturday, 27 January 2018

....helps you find new authors....this is the second series of the Class Act Publishing assemblage. Meet three more storytellers.

Class Act Books is a royalty-paying publisher of electronic and trade paperback novels and novellas, with the goal of providing quality fiction at a reasonable price in all media: paperback (available exclusively on the publisher's website), Kindle, pdf, Mobi, and eBook.After coming under new ownership in 2013, the publishing commitment was changed from only romance to all genres and they now feature Westerns, Adventure, SciFi, M/M, and Horror among their titles. Class Act Books offers standalone novels as well as series, and features award-winning authors. Titles are available on the website as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. They are also featured on the UK, French, German, Japanese and Italian versions of Amazon.com.

Kenneth Gordon lives in Milford, NH. When he isn’t writing SciFi-infused
horror novels, he plays PC games, electric and acoustic guitars, and drums. He
also holds a brown belt in Kung Fu.

Ken has written five SciFi/Horror novels for Class Act
Books: Dark City, Cadre of Vampires,
Harmonic Convergence, In My Blood, and Dirus
Sonus.

Excerpt from Dark City:“I’ve
been promoted. I am now in my boss’ position.” Joe flailed his arms with glee.

“That’s
great. Congratulations!” they all said in unison.

“Where’s
Joe?”

“I
don’t know. He just left. An appointment I guess,” Sarah responded.

“The
’droids are settin’ things up, so I’ll stay out of their hair for a bit.”
Something was off, but he couldn’t pin it down. “I’ll find him,” he told himself
and bolted for his new office.

The
androids had done their work quicker than expected, and Jeremiah’s office was
quiet when he got there. He had to use the scanner to get in. Immediately, he
was taken aback. On his desk were pictures of his family that he didn’t put
there. Setting that thought aside for the moment, he jacked into the phone
system and sent the sequence to dial.

He called Joe’s office. No
answer. A moment later, he called the central office to see if Joe could be
located.

The
automated attendant replied, “We are sorry, that person is no longer employed
at this company.”

A
sense of panic raised the hair on the back of his neck. Immediately, he ran
with every ounce of strength to his friend’s office. It was empty. No trace
that Joe worked thereor
had ever worked there was found. It was swept clean.

“Maybe
I went to the wrong place,” he thought. “All these offices look the same.”

To
his own chagrin, he knew too well the location of his friend’s office. The
paranoia built to a steady state when, upon finding his other compatriots, they
had no knowledge

that
Joe had ever been part of their group. Jeremiah’s heart sank. He even checked
the payroll office and no trace of his friend could be found.

Icy
Snow Blackstone was born in 1802, in northern Georgia where her father, the
Reverend John Blackstone, was prominent in local politics. Two hundred and
five years later, her great-great-great-great-granddaughter began using her
name as a pseudonym for her romance novels. The present Icy Snow Blackstone
lives far from her Southern roots in Lancaster County, Nebraska, where she
continues to write romances. Her novel Tuesday’s Child was award Best in Contemporary Romance by the
Paranormal Romance Guild’s Critics Choice in 2014, while her SciFi romance Earthman’s Bride won first in the
Maryland Romance Writer’s “Reveal Your Inner Vixen” Contest. Her Three Moon series has won awards as a
series and also for individual novels. Icy Snow currently has eleven novels
published by Class Act Books.

Excerpt
from Three Moon Station:

“Mr.
Trant. I guess we’d better have that talk now,” she began and he nodded
soberly. “There’s so much we need to discuss. W-we haven’t even talked about
how much I’ll be paid.”

“What would you consider fair payment, Katy?”
He asked it very softly, his expression serious.

“I
guess that’s up to you. What do you think my services are worth?”

“Truthfully?
I doubt I have that much money.” He looked a little flustered. “The women in
town…at Larkin’s…ge’ ten Federals per toss, so…”

“I’m
sorry,” Katy interrupted. “What’s a toss?”

“Maybe
they call it something else on Terra.” He startled her by seizing her
shoulders, saying with an earnestness that made her frown, “Katy, I want you to
know I’ll ne’er holdyour
old life against you.”

She
smiled at this statement of reverse snobbery. Since she had no intention of
ever letting him know that her uncle was one of the richest and most criminally
unscrupulous men on Terra’s Northern Hemisphere, she didn’t answer.

“How
about you pay me five hundred credits a month? For services rendered?”

“What
kind of services?” he asked, suspiciously.

“The
usual kind.” She shrugged, wondering why he looked even more confused. “I think
we should get one thing straight, though. I’m grateful for your saving me from
Alwin Marsten, and I fully intend to uphold my end of the Agreement and work
hard for you b-but…” Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself free of his
grasp. “I won’t sleepwith
you.”

“Na
right now, you mean.” He didn’t look too upset.

“Not
ever.” She shook her head, adding, “I’m sorry.”

“’Tis
I who’s sorry, Sunshine, most definitely. But I do na understand. If you intend
to adhere to that contract, how can you refuse to—”

Jeremy Higley was
born in California, raised in Alabama, and now lives in Arizona. As of 2016,
he's a graduate student working on a master’s degree in English, as well as an
instructional aide at a local elementary school, a novelist, and a contributing
editor for a nonprofit student success company called LifeBound. Jeremy’s debut
novel with Class Act Books is The Son of
Dark,the first book in the Darksome Thorn series, a young adult fantasy.

Excerpt from The Son of Dark:

Marga pointed to the south. Zar didn’t turn, but he heard
a gasp of recognition from Skel.

“Aja-aja,” he said with concern. “Three of them, about two
miles away.”

Zar sighed in trepidation. The aja-aja were rare, enormous
snakes prowling the Eltar plains, preying on elephants and any herders foolish
enough to attack them. They had three heads each and stocky, powerful bodies to
match, and could grow to over forty feet long. They killed and then predigested
their prey by spitting streams of corrosive poison from their mouths.

“The aja-aja will be no problem,” he bluffed, staring into
Marga’s eyes. “I have two magic-users with me now, a wizard and a Phage.
They’re perfectly capable of dispatching a few overgrown snakes.”

“If so, then I’ll simply have to wait longer to be
reunited with my precious one,” the Wyvern said, eyeing the flattened snake
corpses around her.

Something inside Zar began to burn like a fuse at the
words “precious one.”

“You knew her before, I presume,” he continued, his voice
much quieter. “Before you kidnapped her, I mean, and took over her mind.”

“She was mine to take,” the Wyvern retorted through
Marga’s lips. “She was always mine to take.”

The last words hissed from Marga’s mouth like a challenge.
Zar’s fingers wrapped around his sword’s hilt. He wanted nothing more at this
moment than a way to strike at

his enemy, but the Wyvern was far, far away.

“If you want her,” Zar said, “you’ll have to kill me.”

“Too risky,” the Wyvern replied. “You crave nothing more
than to die for her. To kill you might break my grip.”

“If you don’t kill me she will never truly be yours,” Zar
said. He walked to within an arm’s length of her. “As long as there’s breath in
me, I will always be fighting to freeher.”

Saturday, 20 January 2018

Robbie
was born in London in the United Kingdom. Her father died when she was
three months old and her mother immigrated to South Africa with her tiny baby
girl. Robbie has lived in Johannesburg, George and Cape Town in South Africa
and attended fourteen different schools. This gave her lots of opportunities to
meet new people and learn lots of social skills as she was frequently “the new
girl”.

Robbie
is a qualified Chartered Accountant and specialises in corporate finance with a
specific interest in listed entities and stock markets. Robbie has written a
number of publications on listing equities and debt instruments in Africa and
foreign direct investment into Africa.

Robbie
is married to Terence Cheadle and they have two lovely boys, Gregory and
Michael. Michael (aged 11) is the co-author of the Sir Chocolate series of
books and attends school in Johannesburg. Gregory (aged 14) is an avid reader
and assists Robbie and Michael with filming and editing their YouTube videos
and editing their books. Robbie is also the author of the new Silly Willy
series the first of which, Silly Willy goes to Cape Town, is now available.

Why
did I publish the Sir Chocolate books?

I
have always been a great reader. I learned how to read when I was four years
old and that was the beginning of a wonderful voyage of discovery. I read
everything I could get my hands on; Beatrix Potter, Enid Blyton, C.S. Lewis,
L.M. Montgomery and a myriad of classical authors. I went on adventures up the
Faraway Tree, anguished over the death of Beth in Little Woman, explored the
prairies of America with Laura Ingalls Wilder, flew with Wendy and her brothers
in Peter Pan and grew bigger and smaller with Alice in Alice in Wonderland.

By
the time I was ten years old I had exhausted all the books in our local library
and the school library. I had seven library cards, four were mine and three I
pinched from my younger sister. I used to ride my bicycle to our local library
twice a week and take out seven books at a time. I used to read, curled up in a
chair in my room while snacking on Marie biscuits dipped in milk.

I
was attending a convent in George in the Western Cape at this point in my life,
one of the fourteen schools I attended, and I had a wonderful teacher, Sister
Agatha. Sister Agatha started providing me with some very unusual and
interesting books. The ones that I remember most notably were I am David, When
Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Fattifpuffs and Thinifers, The Diary of Anne Frank, Child
of Satan, Child of God (a personal account by Susan Atkins of life and death
with the infamous Manson family), Mafeking Road: and other stories by Charles
Bosman (a book that gives insight into Afrikaner life in the late 19th
century) and, eventually, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

These
books made a deep impression on me and I have never forgotten any of them. I
have copies of these books in my adult home and have re-read all of them as an
adult. My son, Gregory, a big reader in his own right now, has read some of
these as well. I can still remember sitting and reading A Tale of Two Cities
with a dictionary. I used to look up the words I didn’t know and write them
down in a notebook. One word I have always remembered looking up was
“countenance”.Who was to know that this
interesting word meant face?

I developed a love of classical books and went
on to read most of Dickens’ books, Great Expectations is my favourite, the
creepy old lady in a wedding dress spending her days among the decaying cake
and remnants of a wedding feast bored into my young mind. I also discovered my
three favourite classics, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Journal of a Plague
Year by Daniel De foe and Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.

During
my youth there seemed to be so many wonderful books to read and most of them
were inspirational. They showed you people to be hard working, brave and
adventurous and highlighted respect for faith, family and friends as being very
important.

So,
what has my reading journey as a child and young adult got to do with my own
writing? Two things.

Firstly,
I was inspired to start writing down my thoughts, little poems and other ideas
because of reading L.M. Montgomery’s trilogy about Emily of New Moon. This book
depicts a young girl who loses her mother at a very young age and then her
father when she is ten years old. Emily loves to write and, although writing,
and especially poetry, is considered to be a frivolous waste of time by the
elderly maiden aunt relative who takes her into her home, she continues to
write, expanding into poetry and short stories. The book is partly a journey of
Emily’s development as a writer and poet and I found it very inspiring when I
read it on entering high school when I was twelve years old. I recently
acquired the audio book of Emily of New Moon and my younger son, Michael, was
totally entranced by this story. He listened to all twelve hours of this book
in a week and that is pretty impressive for an eleven-year-old boy.

If a
book can make such a big impression on someone’s life, then surely books are
very important items and deserve to be treated as such. The content of books
must be such that it encourages the best in our impressionable children.

The
second reason that I decided to publish Michael and my Sir Chocolate books was linked
to the first reason in that I became very disillusioned with modern children’s
books.

When
I had my own children, it gave me great pleasure to read to them when they were
small. We revisited all my old favourites and some of them we just about wore
out with re-reading. A favourite of Michael’s was the Faraway Tree trilogy by
Enid Blyton. I think I could recite those books for you. Gregory learned to
read by himself very quickly, but Michael took a bit longer so when we had
exhausted all the books I had read as a child, I set about trying to find some
new books for us to read together and for me to continue to read to Michael.

I
was disappointed and saddened by the content of many of the modern books I
bought. A lot of these books seemed to poke fun at the things I deemed to be
important like family. The youngsters were portrayed as being rude, precocious
and devious to their parents and authority figures. They were also disloyal and
deceitful to their friends and teachers. I did not like the concepts embedded
in a lot of these books, and so I started writing little stories with Michael
to read to him and his cousins who frequently visited. Over time, we started
illustrating the stories with fondant creations as baking and fondant art was
another hobby we used to do together, and I started reading these books to the
children at my Church.

One
of my friends knew a small publisher of books and she suggested that I submit
my books to Anne Samson from TSL Publications to see if she was interested in
them. She was and so Michael and my publishing journey began. Like all things
in life, writing and illustrating a book for children seems to be about 10%
talent and 90% hard work but we have persevered and are pleased to see some
interest being generated in our books. We included five simple recipes in each
of our books with the aim that our little story and cook books would encourage
baking activities and other imaginary play between caregivers and their
children. Our fondant artworks can be reproduced in plasticine or play dough
and I have even seen on industrious little boy try to make a cake out of mud.

Of
course, there are plenty of wonderful modern children’s books. I absolutely
love the Winnie the Witch series of books. I have also discovered Indie books
over the past few years and this has also opened a whole new reading world for
me. I have found some marvelous book series to read with Michael which both of
us enjoy and which have messaging that I am comfortable with. It is a great
thing that there are so many wonderful children’s authors out there writing
amazing books for children.

Thank
you, Allan, for providing Michael and I will this opportunity to visit you at
The Scribbler and share some of our thoughts on reading and writing.

It is our absolute pleasure having you as our guest this week Robbie. It's been fun to read about the development of your books and characters. We wish you continued success with your writing.

Saturday, 13 January 2018

...........is such a cool place to hang out that we have been approached by Class Act Publishing to feature their cast of authors and we are thrilled to help out. This week you can meet the first 3.

Class
Act Books is a royalty-paying publisher of electronic and trade paperback novels
and novellas, with the goal of providing quality fiction at a reasonable price
in all media: paperback (available exclusively on the publisher's website),
Kindle, pdf, Mobi, and eBook.After
coming under new ownership in 2013, the publishing commitment was changed from
only romance to all genres and they now feature Westerns, Adventure, SciFi, M/M,
and Horror among their titles. Class Act Books offers standalone novels as well
as series, and features award-winning authors. Titles are available on the
website as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. They are also
featured on the UK, French, German, Japanese and Italian versions of
Amazon.com.

Juanita Aydlette was born in
Shreveport, Louisiana. What started out as a

childhood obsession with magical
creatures in storybooks, became a passion in later years. She creats such magic
in her first novel It’s in the Blood,
which was a Top Ten finisher in the 2016 Preditors & Editors readers Poll
in the “Young Adult Novel” category. Juanita challenges her imagination to
bring readers into her world of romance, suspense and fear of the unknown. Her
upcoming novel Blood Ties continues
this paranormal romance series.

Excerpt from It’s in the Blood:

Away from the open menagerie was a path surrounded by dense trees.
It was across a narrow decorative bridge built into the landscape. The thick
greenery provided a shady side to the open garden. After only a few yards
inside the cover of the trees, my body was seized by a rumble and a frightening
snarl. A chill blanketed me and I couldn’t move. I didn’t dare look around, for
the back of my blouse had already been saturated by the heated moisture from
the breath of the beast. My first instinct was to scream, but fear had stolen
my voice. So I took a deep breath and held it. The scent of horror filled my
lungs. It was familiar. Was I being stalked by the animal that lurked outside
my hotel grounds?

Help me please, rang inside my
head. My eyes squeezed shut as its sharp fangs pinched my shoulder. Tears
filled my eyes and my hands formed a fist. I waited to feel my bones snap when
suddenly, it let go. The leaves crunched. The sound grew fainter by the second,
then nothing. My eyes remained closed as I trembled and listened.“Miss? Are you okay?” A woman’s voice severed my nightmare. Without hesitation I ran past her, clutching my throat and
sobbing. The other tourists were boarding the van and I made my way to the
back. When the bus stopped, I ran from the tourist center to the hotel.
Once inside the bathroom, I stripped and examined my shoulder. A painful bruise
was both in front and in back. I cried out loud, shook convulsively, and then
laughed hysterically. Was I going mad?

Linda
J. Burson is an author from Connecticut. After years of writing and editing for
others, Linda decided to tackle her first romantic suspense novel entitled Rage, which began as a single book,
eventually became a trilogy, and finally a series. There are currently six
novels in the Marcy series. Linda’s
novel Rage placed in the Top Ten in “Best Thrillers” in 2016, and in 2016, she
was in the Top Ten in Preditors and Editors Readers Poll in the “Best Author”category. Her novel The Agreement was also in the Top Ten under “Best Thrillers.”

Excerpt
from Rage:

The
tears are pouring down my cheeks. I can’t believe this. This man was in love
with me from the moment he saw me, and he knew nothing about me.

I
understand it because I seemed to feel a sense about him from the beginning. I
let him in my home late at night, a perfect stranger, but I felt it was all
right. It’s like my soul was speaking to me as well. Maybe I’m as crazy as he
is.

What
I don’t understand is if we were meant to be together, why did I meet Brad? Why
am I in love with two men? I’m so confused. No wonder he doesn’t mind coming
here and staying. This place is his sanctuary. It’s our place…a place where no
one can take me away from him.

Jack Frost
is a Louisiana native now living in Lincoln, NE. After 40 years in media
news, starting out in radio, and ending as a news director in television, Jack
retired in 2002, but continues as a spokesman for senior citizens in a once a
week interview broadcast on KOLN/KGIN-TV in Lincoln. Jack writes political
thrillers set in Louisiana. Class Act Books has published three of his Jake
Coleman novels, Dead Man’s Hand, Cold
Deck, and Stacked Deck.

Excerpt from Dead Man’s Hand:

The General took a deep breath and launched
into what would direct my life for many years to come.

“The
sheriff came to see me yesterday. They’re still looking into the accident that
took the life of that unfortunate girl. He wants to know who was driving the
car and whether the driver had been drinking.”

I
stared at the General in astonishment.

“Cornelius
says he doesn’t remember anything about that night,” he added before I could
speak. “I’m wondering if you may have been behind the wheel. They found another
tux coat near the wreckage, all torn up and a whiskey bottle crushed in the
pocket. They think that coat was yours. The sheriff wants to charge you with
vehicular homicide.”

My
skin went cold. My mind was in turmoil trying to absorb what the General had
said.

“Sir,” I finally was able to speak. “It was
Trey who was driving. He’d been drinking. I hadn’t.”

“Now,
Jake. Let’s be reasonable. You know Cornelius would own up to this if he had
been driving. But that night is a blank to him. Cornelius just got notified he
has been chosen as a candidate to West Point. I know we can come to some sort
of agreement here.”

He
got to the real reason he was there.

“I
can make the charges go away that the district attorney wants to file against
you. And I can make sure you and your mother never have to worry about anything
as long as you

live.”

The
General spelled out specifics of his proposal without actually admitting
anything incriminating about his son’s involvement. It was a well thought out
plan.

I
was stunned, but I was thinking. He had achieved his purpose. I had a bleak
future except for what the General had offered. Over Mother’s protests, I
agreed to his terms.

With
a half million dollars deposited in my mother’s name, I went to court the next
month and pleaded no contest to vehicular homicide. My probation was contingent
upon me joining a branch of military service. The General wanted me out of
sight…and out of mind.

Thanks for visiting dear readers. Some great choices to pick from for your next read. Class Act will be back in two weeks with three more authors, don't miss it.***This post is not an endorsement of Class Act Publishing but rather an opportunity presented by them to meet their authors and the Scribbler is happy to accommodate. Please visit their website for more information and submission details

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Somewhere in New Brunswick. Photo by France Duguay.

Allan Hudson

About Me

I started writing later in life, inspired by one of my favorite authors, Bryce Courtenay, who began his writing career in his mid-fifties. It has been one of my most rewarding pastimes. I’ve been an avid reader all my life. It started with Dick & Jane – a primary reader my mother brought home from her work – she was a school teacher and taught me to read at an early age.

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5 Star review for Shattered Figurine

The opening chapter presents the detective, Jo Naylor, with a very important question. One she didn’t really want to answer but knows she must.

The next chapter, one year later, hits you square in the face with full on complicated and violent action as we discover what this story is all about.

Shattered Figurines is a surprisingly unusual detective story in that it doesn’t follow the usual plotline for this genre and the characters aren’t run of the mill either. The author has captured a very real element in both the story and the characters and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

I love a good detective mystery story and Shattered Figurines is one of the best I have read this year. I shall be first in the queue when the author writes another one in this series.

Shattered Figurine - a novella - Available Now!

Shattered Figurine. She sold it at a yard sale four years ago, when she was thirty-seven, and she remembers who bought it. She hadn’t given it a thought since then. In her mind, there had been no reason to. The message this morning changed that. She can’t ignore the possibility, no matter how horrific it seems. She prays silently that she be proven wrong" Click on the photo to read a brief excerpt. Thank you for your support.

Shipping your copy of Shattered Figurine.

Please note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to purchase a copy, you will be able to use your credit card. Once notification is received, please allow up to 24 hours for your copy to be shipped. Thank you.

Review of Wall of War

Dark Side of a Promise

Drake Alexander Adventure - Book 1. I'm pleased to announce the first two novels in the Drake Alexander Adventures are now available as an eBook at the following outlets. Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Baker & Taylor, Playster, Book2read, Bibliotheca, Overdrive, Tolino, Scribd, 24 Symbols & Amazon. Soon to be available at other booksellers.

Buy it Here

Wall of War and Dark Side of a Promise is available at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Cover to Cover in Riverview, Cocagne Variety in Cocagne and from the author.

The Douglas Kyle Memorial Award for Fiction

My story - The Ship Breakers - received Honorable Mention in the Douglas Kyle Memorial awards for New Brunswick Writers Federation's short story category. Published in 2018 in A Box of Memories, a collection of delightful and entertaining short stories.